


our conversations are like minefields

by ceruleanVulpine



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry's only technically in it, Dramatic Irony, Friendship, Gen, ominous elevators, wells being creepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleanVulpine/pseuds/ceruleanVulpine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They hadn't been really close, before. Now they know each other way, way too well. You know what they say: nothing brings people together like gigantic, explosive, life-ruining tragedy followed by all your coworkers walking out on you.</p><p>Okay, nobody says that.</p><p>---</p><p>Cisco and Caitlin chat about Barry Allen and S.T.A.R. Labs' personnel shortage, among other things; everyone is sad, except for Wells, who is mildly creepy, and Barry, who lies there. Set between the particle accelerator explosion and the beginning of the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our conversations are like minefields

“So,” says Cisco. He spins in his chair, slowly, so that his field of vision slides over Barry Allen (just as comatose as ever) and onto Caitlin Snow (labeling a huge amount of little plastic tubes with a fine-point Sharpie). “Why are you still here?”

Caitlin holds up her marker in one hand and a tube in the other. “Someone has to label these?”

“No, I mean here, like. At S.T.A.R. Labs.”

She gives him a look like he’s stupid, which he doesn’t appreciate. “Why would I leave?”

“Uhh, same reasons everyone else did?” Cisco points at her with his pen. “We both know you’re the best biochemist for miles. You could get a job anywhere. That includes a lot of places that aren’t literally disaster zones.”

Caitlin’s look of surprise gives way to a frown. “Francisco Ramon, do you really expect me to believe that the only reason you stayed at S.T.A.R. Labs is because you didn't think you could find employment somewhere else?”

“Whoa, whoa, that’s not even close to what I said!” Cisco protests, raising his hands in front of him with his palms out. But. He sighs. “Fine. That’s a good point. You got me. I’m gracious in defeat.”

She looks smug. The girl should have been a psychologist. “Then you won’t assume my only possible motivation is finding a better job. It’s a little rude.” The final test tube gets labeled, with a flourish.

“But—” Cisco knows he’s about to say something dumb, but the words are already tumbling out of his mouth. “You never even worked on the particle accelerator. It wasn’t your—hm.” He presses his knuckles against his lips and rotates away from her.

“Cisco.” Out of the corner of his eye, Cisco can see her setting her tube and marker down and fixing him with a trademark icy Dr. Snow Look. Danger, Will Robinson.

“Hm?”

“Were you about to try to tell me that this entire catastrophe was somehow your fault, just because you were involved with building it?”

“I was gonna say… responsibility?” he attempts.

“Liar,” she says. It's affectionate, or, at least, it contains the lack of actual hostility that passes for affection in Caitlin nowadays.

Cisco taps his feet against the base of his chair as the progress bar on his simulation creeps slowly towards completion. Caitlin finishes her labeling. Barry, with his usual sharp wit, contributes the continuous slow beeping of his heart monitor.

Sometimes, when Cisco used to see Caitlin and Ronnie together at work, he’d tease her: _Jeez, Cait, maybe make your office PDA a little less obvious? I still gotta work with the guy._ “Cait” always made her turn red, and then start laughing.

After the explosion, he’d called her that exactly once. Yeah, it had been an accident, but that hadn’t made her face any easier to look at.

They hadn't been really close, before. Now they know each other way, way too well. You know what they say: nothing brings people together like gigantic, explosive, life-ruining tragedy followed by all your coworkers walking out on you.

Okay, nobody says that.

Caitlin picks up a micropipette and jabs it into a box of pipette tips. It comes up neatly sheathed in yellow plastic. She glares at the pipette as she sets the volume of liquid it’ll draw up, then turns her attention to pulling miniscule amounts of something-or-other from a bottle and dispensing it into each tube in her neatly labeled row. There are pipetting robots—Cisco saw one once. He wonders if he could build Caitlin one, now that she can’t bully interns into doing her prep work. It’d be an interesting problem.

Barry Allen beeps quietly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Caitlin says. She ejects her pipette tip into a trash can with a click, takes a deep breath. “It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t Ronnie’s fault. None of you could have seen this coming.”

Cisco wishes he could shove this conversation back into the grave it clawed its way out of, but he nods slowly and says “You’re right,” because it would be a dick move to say anything else after the way Caitlin stumbled over Ronnie’s name. People died, Ramon, get your self-pity under control. People who did a hell of a lot more to keep the city safe than you did. People who might be alive if you hadn't … ugh.

She must see through him (admittedly, it’s not difficult), because she comes around the table to his workstation and looks at him very seriously. “Maybe,” she says, leaning on the desk, “you don't trust yourself not to have missed something. But everyone working on the accelerator was as good at their job as you are at yours—”

“Except maaaaybe Hartley Rathaway.”

“Cisco!”

“Look into your heart,” he intones, trying to turn back to his Very Important Work. “You know it to be true.”

“And,” she presses on, moving his mouse out of his reach, “if anyone had seen something that you could have fixed, it would have been fixed. And—someone would have seen it. Dr. Wells would have seen it!”

Part of Cisco wants to say _you know he's not_ actually _infallible, right?_ because, hey, no one is. But there's an intensely unscientific part of him that refuses to entertain that idea, let alone say it out loud. Plus, Caitlin’s trying to be helpful, and ... he's surprised to realize that he actually does feel better. So instead he says “Thanks,” like a normal friend.

Their conversation lapses into silence, as it often does. It's two parts “empty lab” and one part “talking is a minefield of upsetting stuff.” Add a dash of “only other guy in the room is freaking comatose,” and you've got the recipe for S.T.A.R. Labs Quiet Study Time.

But the unconscious dude’s apparently got his own ideas, because he suddenly starts thrashing around at super-speed, causing his various machines to let out a chorus of high-pitched robot screams. Cisco yelps “Jesus Christ!” (it’s a yelp, he’s not ashamed to admit it) and almost falls out of his chair. Shit. Allen’s freaking seizure tantrums, or _whatever_ they are, get him every time.

Caitlin hurries over to the bed and starts doing doctor things. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Cisco asks. “I mean, probably not, this isn’t really my area of expertise, but—”

“No, this is pretty much normal.” Allen slumps back down, breathing heavily; Caitlin checks readouts, presses buttons, and otherwise soothes the machines back into silence. When the only sound left is the beeping of Allen’s heart monitor gradually slowing back to normal, she sits down next to the bed and starts going through the motions of a practiced routine involving needles and drip lines.

Cisco watches Allen’s chest go up and down. “What do you think 2 Fast 2 Furious here will be like, when he wakes up?”

“I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never talked to him.”

“Yeah, but I _feel_ like I know him.” Caitlin raises her eyebrows. Cisco clarifies: “I mean, I watched you intubate him. That makes us, like, automatically closer than I am to most of my friends.”

She laughs, and looks at Allen, considering. “His friend Iris seems to think he’s … nice?”

“Oh, yeah, _Iris_.” Cisco grins. “Do you think they were a thing?”

“Speculating about my patient’s love life would be unethical,” says Caitlin primly. “ … Besides, aren’t they brother and sister?”

“What? You’re messing with me.” She shakes her head. “Oh my god, you’re actually not messing with me. Now I feel gross, congratulations. Why did you let me say that.”

“They’re foster siblings?” Caitlin offers.

“Yeah, no, I guessed that, it’s not like they look related!”

“Who guessed what?” says an amiable voice from the elevator.

Cisco jumps up and spins around. “Dr. Wells!”

Dr. Wells moves into the Cortex. “Hello, Cisco. Caitlin. I'm glad to see someone’s looking after our Mr. Allen. But...” He looks at his watch. “The two of you should probably get some rest. Don't worry, Caitlin, I know the routine.”

“I'm just waiting for this to finish running,” Cisco assures him. He leans down to peck at the keyboard. “Aaand… done.”

Caitlin frowns. “Are _you_ getting enough rest, Dr. Wells? You look—” She catches Cisco’s glare. “Fine! Excellent and well-rested.” Cisco goes back to gathering his things.

Dr. Wells shakes his head, laughing. “Caitlin, you don't have to worry about me.” He rolls up to Allen’s bed. “Go home, you two.”

Cisco slings his bag over his shoulder, and waits for Caitlin as she slots her little tubes one by one into a plastic rack and sets it on a high shelf. As they make their way to the elevator, she casts one more worried look over her shoulder at Wells.

The last thing Cisco sees is Dr. Wells, settling back in his wheelchair—hands steepled under his chin, one tapping finger keeping time with the slow rhythm of the heart monitor—staring out into the distance over Barry’s body as he sleeps. Then the elevator doors close.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is stolen from the Mountain Goats' "Southwood Plantation Road:" "our conversations are like minefields/no one's found a safe way through one yet." Unfortunately the rest of the song doesn't fit.


End file.
